Naked Sushi: Eat but don’t touch the plate

Mia Stainsby, Vancouver Sun08.30.2014

Naked Sushi has arrived in Vancouver. A catering firm run by chef Mike Keenan offers a nearly naked model festooned with sushi placed on sanitized leaves for special events. Guests are required to pick up the sushi with chopsticks.

Naked Sushi, a Vancouver company that provides sushi served on a nude body for events, is outside of the jurisdiction of Vancouver Coastal Health.Screen capture from NakedSushi.ca
/ Vancouver Sun Files

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Samantha, in Sex and The City did it. And so do ‘exotic’ entertainers who might show up at a bachelor party — only they’d be willing to throw in a lap dance.

But now, for the first time in Vancouver, there’s an up and up catering company that offers “naked sushi,” the naked referring to a naked woman who becomes a living, breathing human plate.

Let me clarify. She’s not totally naked. There are four flowers and double-sided tape to conceal privates. When she takes her break, she puts on a robe which she is lying on.

Mike Keenan, first started Naked Sushi in Toronto in 2010 (where he’s catered “a few thousand events” and started up in Vancouver in July. He expects to do even better in Vancouver with its “open-minded food culture” — but let’s be honest here, Spam sushi would arouse the same interest.

Keenan has been a chef for 13 years and worked in a Japanese restaurant for seven years. He has a catering licence and makes the sushi in a friend’s Japanese restaurant, which has passed health inspections. The owner of the restaurant doesn’t want the name disclosed because of the “stigma,” says Keenan.

Regarding food hygiene, Keenan says the food doesn’t touch the model’s skin. It’s placed on sanitized leaves. “It’s no different than a server walking to a table with a plate.”

The naked sushi idea began during the samurai period in Japan, he says. “It was a subculture to the geishas. It would take place in a geisha house as a celebration after a victorious battle.”

Like a hockey team winning? I asked.

“Not if you’re a Canucks fan,” he said.

In Japan, the practice is called nyotaimori. “It’s a 50-50 split. Half the Japanese think it’s cool. Others say it’s for samurais and hookers. But chefs who are really into sushi, they think it’s beautiful.” Which is why, I suppose, there are no naked men displaying sushi.

Even gay men prefer female sushi bearers, Keenan says. “I once asked some men organizing a post-Pride Parade party (in Toronto) if they wanted a male model and they said, ‘No, no! We want a female.’ ”

In Japan, it’s more of a restaurant thing where chefs will do it upon request. “It’s much bigger in the U.S.,” says Keenan. “There’s one in L.A. with Playboy models.”

Is it sexploitation or art? “I guess it could go either way,” Keenan says. “We are very proactive when it comes to the safety of the models and invoke a lot of rules. We’ve never had a problem where they were made to feel uncomfortable.”

Keenan or someone else is at almost every event and models are never left on their own. “If anyone breaks the rules, the party’s over. we just leave. But we’ve never had an issue. Our clientele are usually professionals who have learned how to behave in society.”

Although nyotaimori rules include no speaking to the model, Keenan allows models to talk because it’s asking too much to have them be still for two hours (with a break). Guests can only pick up sushi with chopsticks and can’t make lewd, inappropriate comments or gestures.

Models make $200 for the two hours. Keenan says real models work best because they’re used to posing and working under difficult conditions. “The challenge is to find a body that can hold the sushi. “Someone can have the fittest figure but it can’t be too round or too curvy or the sushi will fall.”

Pricing ranges from $20 a person to $85 with a minimum of 12 guests. The latter includes side dishes and a server for extra food, like salad, oysters, gyoza and dessert.

When it comes to Naked Sushi rules, Keenan says women are the ones who break them. “I did an event where a girl walked up and licked the model. Women are probably worse because they’re thinking they have all the same parts and they can do, whatever.”

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Naked Sushi: Eat but don’t touch the plate

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